EQI.org Home | Library and Bookstore | Other Important Authors

Excerpts from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People
Buy from Amazon

Comparing What Dale Carnegie and Daniel Goleman say about success

Listening

A Mother and Her Teen Daughter

Active Listening

I Know You Love Me

Telephone Company Story

Final's Final - Almost losing a customer

Safety Hats

Respect

A Father Earns His Son's Respect

Leading by Showing Respect

No One Likes To Take Orders, Therefore, Ask Questions Instead of Giving Direct Orders

Thinking of Others, Caring, Loneliness

Motivational Stories

How To Spur People On To Success

Positive Reinforcement Stories

Criticizing

On The Negative Effects of Criticism

Criticizing vs Understanding

Appreciation

On Creating Resentment

Table of Contents

I also have notes from the first time I listened to his book on tape on this page

EQI.org Home Page


Other EQI.org Topics:

Emotional Intelligence | Empathy
Emotional Abuse | Understanding
Emotional Literacy | Feeling Words
Respect | Parenting | Caring
Listening | Invalidation | Hugs
Depression |Education
Personal Growth

Search EQI.org | Support EQI.org



Online Consulting, Counseling Coaching from EQI.org

 
Comparing What Dale Carnegie and Daniel Goleman Say About Success

What Carnegie said in 1936

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. Research done a few years ago under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching uncovered a most important and significant fact - a fact later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. These investigations revealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people.

Compare this to what Dan Goleman said in 1995

One of psychology's open secrets is the relative inability of grades, IQ, or SAT scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life. To be sure, there is a relationship between IQ and life circumstances for large groups as a whole: many people with very low IQs end up in menial jobs, and those with high IQs tend to become well-paid— but by no means always.

There are widespread exceptions to the rule that IQ predicts success — many (or more) exceptions than cases that fit the rule. At best, IQ contributes about 20 percent to the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80 percent to other forces. As one observer notes, "The vast majority of one's ultimate niche in society is determined by non-IQ factors, ranging from social class to luck."

Even Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, whose book The Bell Curve imputes a primary importance to IQ, acknowledge this; as they point out, "Perhaps a freshman with an SAT math score of 500 had better not have his heart set on being a mathematician, but if instead he wants to run his own business, become a U.S. Senator or make a million dollars, he should not put aside his dreams. . . . The link between test scores and those achievements is dwarfed by the totality of other characteristics that he brings to life."

My concern is with a key set of these "other characteristics," emotional intelligence: abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope. Unlike IQ, with its nearly one-hundred-year history of research with hundreds of thousands of people, emotional intelligence is a new concept. No one can yet say exactly how much of the variability from person to person in life's course it accounts for. But what data exist suggest it can be as powerful, and at times more powerful, than IQ. And while there are those who argue that IQ cannot be changed much by experience or education, I will show in Part Five that the crucial emotional competencies can indeed be learned and improved upon by children — if we bother to teach them. p 34

S. Hein comments about "success"

Thinking of Others, Caring, Loneliness

William James once wrote an essay called "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings." It would be worth a special trip to your nearest library to get that essay and read it. "Now the blindness in human beings of which this discourse will treat," he wrote, "is the blindness with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves."

Many men who wouldn't dream of speaking sharply to a customer, or even to their partners in business, think nothing of barking at their wives. Yet, for their personal happiness, marriage is far more important to them, far more vital, than business.

The average man who is happily married is happier by far than the genius who lives in solitude. Turgenev, the great Russian novelist, was acclaimed all over the civilized world. Yet he said: "I would give up all my genius, and all my books, if there were only some woman, somewhere, who cared whether or not I came home late for dinner."

 
Active Listening

Carnegie wrote this before the term "Active listening" was popularized by Thomas Gordon

"Dr. Eliot's listening was not mere silence, but a form of activity. Sitting very erect on the end of his spine with hands joined in his lap, making no movement except that he revolved his thumbs around each other faster or slower, he faced his interlocutor and seemed to be hearing with his eyes as well as his ears. He listened with his mind and attentively considered what you had to say while you said it. ... At the end of an interview the person who had talked to him felt that he had had his say."

Self-evident, isn't it? You don't have to study for four years in
Harvard to discover that.

I Know That You Love Me

Listening is just as important in one's home life as in the world of
business. Millie Esposito of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, made it her
business to listen carefully when one of her children wanted to speak
with her. One evening she was sitting in the kitchen with her son,
Robert, and after a brief discussion of something that was on his
mind, Robert said: "Mom, I know that you love me very much."

Mrs. Esposito was touched and said: "Of course I love you very
much. Did you doubt it?"

Robert responded: "No, but I really know you love me because
whenever I want to talk to you about something you stop whatever
you are doing and listen to me."

 
Telephone Company Story

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften
and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener - a
listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a
king cobra and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate: The
New York Telephone Company discovered a few years ago that it
had to deal with one of the most vicious customers who ever cursed
a customer service representative. And he did curse. He raved. He
threatened to tear the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay
certain charges that he declared were false. He wrote letters to the
newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with the Public Service
Commission, and he started several suits against the telephone
company.

At last, one of the company's most skillful "trouble-shooters" was
sent to interview this stormy petrel. This "troubleshooter" listened
and let the cantankerous customer enjoy himself pouring out his
tirade. The telephone representative listened and said "yes" and
sympathized with his grievance.

"He raved on and I listened for nearly three hours," the
"troubleshooter" said as he related his experiences before one of the
author's classes. "Then I went back and listened some more. I
interviewed him four times, and before the fourth visit was over I
had become a charter member of an organization he was starting.
He called it the 'Telephone Subscribers' Protective Association.' I am
still a member of this organization, and, so far as I know, I'm the
only member in the world today besides Mr. ----.

"I listened and sympathized with him on every point that he made
during these interviews. He had never had a telephone
representative talk with him that way before, and he became almost
friendly. The point on which I went to see him was not even
mentioned on the first visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or
third, but upon the fourth interview.

I closed the case completely, he paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the history of his
difficulties with the telephone company he voluntarily withdrew his
complaints from the Public Service Commission."

Doubtless Mr. Smith had considered himself a holy crusader,
defending the public rights against callous exploitation. But in reality,
what he had really wanted was a feeling of importance. He got this
feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon
as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the
company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air.

--

Note - I don't believe his grievances were "imagined." And I am afraid this kind of thinking will lead to invalidation, even if it is not shown to the person directly for business reasons. Also, needed changes won't be made if people think that others are just imagining things. S.Hein


The Safety Hats Story

George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for
an engineering company. One of his responsibilities is to see that
employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the
field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were
not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of
the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get
sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove
the hats.

He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some
of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were
uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a
pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them
from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The
result was increased compliance with the regulation with no
resentment or emotional upset.

 
Final's Final

Final's Final
Told by Dale Carnegie

I know and you know department store owners who will rent expensive space, buy their goods economically, dress their windows appealingly, spend thousands of dollars in advertising and then hire clerks who haven't the sense to be good listeners - clerks who interrupt customers, contradict them, irritate them, and all but drive them from the store.

A department store in Chicago almost lost a regular customer who spent several thousand dollars each year in that store because a sales clerk wouldn't listen. Mrs. Henrietta Douglas, who took our course in Chicago, had purchased a coat at a special sale. After she had brought it home she noticed that there was a tear in the lining.

She came back the next day and asked the sales clerk to exchange it. The clerk refused even to listen to her complaint. "You bought this at a special sale," she said. She pointed to a sign on the wall. "Read that," she exclaimed. " 'All sales are final.' Once you bought it, you have to keep it. Sew up the lining yourself."

"But this was damaged merchandise," Mrs. Douglas complained.

"Makes no difference," the clerk interrupted. "Final's final "

Mrs. Douglas was about to walk out indignantly, swearing never to return to that store ever, when she was greeted by the department manager, who knew her from her many years of patronage. Mrs. Douglas told her what had happened.
The manager listened attentively to the whole story, examined the coat and then said: "Special sales are 'final' so we can dispose of merchandise at the end of the season. But this 'no return' policy does not apply to damaged goods. We will certainly repair or replace the lining, or if you prefer, give you your money back."
What a difference in treatment! If that manager had not come along and listened to the customer, a long-term patron of that store could have been lost forever.

--

Note- We could also say they haven't been trained to be good listeners rather than saying they "haven't the sense" - SH

See also EQI page on Listening

No One Likes To Take Orders, Therefore, Ask Questions Instead of Giving Direct Orders

Story 1

I once had the pleasure of dining with Miss Ida Tarbell, the dean of American biographers. When I told her I was writing this book, we began discussing this all-important subject of getting along with people, and she told me that while she was writing her biography of Owen D. Young, she interviewed a man who had sat for three years in the same office with Mr. Young. This man declared that during all that time he had never heard Owen D. Young give a direct order to anyone. He always gave suggestions, not orders. Owen D. Young never said, for example, "Do this or do that," or "Don't do this or don't do that." He would say, "You might consider this," or "Do you think that would work?" Frequently he would say, after he had dictated a letter, "What do you think of this?" In looking over a letter of one of his assistants, he would say, "Maybe if we were to phrase it this way it would be better." He always gave people the opportunity to do things themselves; he never told his assistants to do things; he let them do them, let them learn from their mistakes.

A technique like that makes it easy for a person to correct errors. A technique like that saves a person's pride and gives him or her a feeling of importance. It encourages cooperation instead of rebellion.

Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask. People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.

Story 2

Resentment caused by a brash order may last a long time - even if the order was given to correct an obviously bad situation. Dan Santarelli, a teacher at a vocational school in Wyoming, Pennsylvania, told one of our classes how one of his students had blocked the entrance way to one of the school's shops by illegally parking his car in it. One of the other instructors stormed into the classroom and asked in an arrogant tone, "Whose car is blocking the driveway?" When the student who owned the car responded, the instructor screamed: "Move that car and move it right now, or I'll wrap a chain around it and drag it out of there."

From that day on, not only did that student resent the instructor's action, but all the students in the class did everything they could to give the instructor a hard time and make his job unpleasant.

How could he have handled it differently?

EQI answer...

He could have said, "I just noticed that there is a blue car parked in front of one of our shops and I'm afraid that it will block the way for other students."

If he had said this it is likely that the owner would have moved it and neither he nor his classmates would have been upset and resentful.

Story 3

When Ian Macdonald of Johannesburg, South Africa, the general manager of a small manufacturing plant specializing in precision machine parts, had the opportunity to accept a very large order, he was convinced that he would not meet the promised delivery date. The work already scheduled in the shop and the short completion time needed for this order made it seem impossible for him to accept the order.

Instead of pushing his people to accelerate their work and rush the order through, he called everybody together, explained the situation to them, and told them how much it would mean to the company and to them if they could make it possible to produce the order on time. Then he started asking questions:

"Is there anything we can do to handle this order?"

"Can anyone think of different ways to process it through the shop that will make it possible to take the order?"

"Is there any way to adjust our hours or personnel assignments that would help?"

The employees came up with many ideas and insisted that he take the order. They approached it with a "We can do it" attitude, and the order was accepted, produced and delivered on time.

 
 
Principle 5 - Let The Other Person Save Face

This could also be called "Consider Feelings When Criticizing"

Carnegie says we often fail to consider other people's feelings. He says we are often "getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person's pride. " He says just a little thought, "a considerate word or two, a genuine understanding of the other person's attitude, would go so far toward alleviating the sting."

Here is the story that goes with that...

Years ago the General Electric Company was faced with the delicate task of removing Charles Steinmetz from the head of a department. Steinmetz, a genius of the first magnitude when it came to electricity, was a failure as the head of the calculating department. Yet the company didn't dare offend the man. He was indispensable - and highly sensitive. So they gave him a new title. They made him Consulting Engineer of the General Electric Company - a new title for work he was already doing -and let someone else head up the department.

Steinmetz was happy. So were the officers of G.E. They had gently maneuvered their most temperamental star, and they had done it without a storm - by letting him save face.

Letting one save face! How important, how vitally important that is! And how few of us ever stop to think of it! We ride roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person's pride. Whereas a few minutes' thought, a considerate word or two, a genuine understanding of the other person's attitude, would go so far toward alleviating the sting!

Losing a Good Employee

A student in one of Carnegie's courses told this story about what happened when a manager failed to consider his employee's feelings.

"At one of our meetings, a vice president was asking very pointed questions of one of our supervisors. His tone of voice was aggressive and aimed at pointing out faulty performance on the part of the supervisor. Not wanting to be embarrassed in front of his peers, the supervisor was evasive in his responses. This caused the vice president to lose his temper, berate the supervisor and accuse him of lying.

"Any working relationship that might have existed prior to this encounter was destroyed in a few brief moments. This supervisor, who was basically a good worker, was useless to our company from that time on. A few months later he left our firm and went to work for a competitor, where I understand he is doing a fine job."

Carnegie then offers a contrasting story of how a manager handled a situation in a much better way. He says that another student was given her first major assignment - the test-marketing of a new product. Here is that story.

"When the results of the test came in, I was devastated. I had made a serious error in my planning, and the entire test had to be done all over again. To make this worse, I had no time to discuss it with my boss before the meeting in which I was to make my report on the project.

"When I was called on to give the report, I was shaking with fright. I had all I could do to keep from breaking down, but I resolved I would not cry and have all those men make remarks about women not being able to handle a management job because they are too emotional. I made my report briefly and stated that due to an error I would repeat the study before the next meeting. I sat down, expecting my boss to blow up.

"Instead, he thanked me for my work and remarked that it was not unusual for a person to make an error on a new project and that he had confidence that the repeat survey would be accurate and meaningful to the company. He assured me, in front of all my colleagues, that he had faith in me and I knew I had done my best, and that my lack of experience, not my lack of ability, was the reason for the failure.

I left that meeting with my head in the air and with the determination that I would never let that boss of mine down again."

Carnegie continues...

Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote: "I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime."

Carnegie says "a real leader will always follow Principle 5 - Let the other person save face. "

 
Motivational Stories

Enrico Caruso

Many years ago a boy of ten was working in a factory in Naples, He longed to be a singer, but his first teacher discouraged him. "You can't sing," he said. "You haven't any voice at all. It sounds like the wind in the shutters."

But his mother, a poor peasant woman, put her arms about him and praised him and told him she knew he could sing, she could already see an improvement, and she went barefoot in order to save money to pay for his music lessons. That peasant mother's praise and encouragement changed that boy's life. His name was Enrico Caruso, and he became the greatest and most famous opera singer of his age.

(But what if it had been his mother who said "You can't sing?")

-

In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been flung in jail because he couldn't pay his debts, and this young man often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at night in a dismal attic room with two other boys - guttersnipes from the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused. Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn't paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks.

The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn't been for that encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in rat-infested factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was Charles Dickens.

--

Another boy in London made his living as a clerk in a dry-goods store. He had to get up at five o'clock, sweep out the store, and slave for fourteen hours a day. It was sheer drudgery and he despised it. After two years, he could stand it no longer, so he got up one morning and, without waiting for breakfast, tramped fifteen miles to talk to his mother, who was working as a housekeeper.

He was frantic. He pleaded with her. He wept. He swore he would kill himself if he had to remain in the shop any longer. Then he wrote a long, pathetic letter to his old schoolmaster, declaring that he was heartbroken, that he no longer wanted to live. His old schoolmaster gave him a little praise and assured him that he really was very intelligent and fitted for finer things and offered him a job as a teacher.

That praise changed the future of that boy and made a lasting impression on the history of English literature. For that boy went on to write innumerable best-selling books and made over a million dollars with his pen. You've probably heard of him. His name: H. G. Wells.

 
How To Spur People On To Success

Pete Barlow was an old friend of mine. He had a dog-and-pony act and spent his life traveling with circuses and vaudeville shows. I loved to watch Pete train new dogs for his act. I noticed that the moment a dog showed the slightest improvement, Pete patted and praised him and gave him meat and made a great to-do about it.

That's nothing new. Animal trainers have been using that same technique for centuries.

Why, I wonder, don't we use the same common sense when trying to change people that we use when trying to change dogs? Why don't we use meat instead of a whip? Why don't we use praise instead of condemnation? Let us praise even the slightest improvement. That inspires the other person to keep on improving.

--

In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been flung in jail because he couldn't pay his debts, and this young man often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at night in a dismal attic room with two other boys - guttersnipes from the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused. Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn't paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks.

The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn't been for that encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in rat-infested factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was Charles Dickens.

--

Another boy in London made his living as a clerk in a dry-goods store. He had to get up at five o'clock, sweep out the store, and slave for fourteen hours a day. It was sheer drudgery and he despised it. After two years, he could stand it no longer, so he got up one morning and, without waiting for breakfast, tramped fifteen miles to talk to his mother, who was working as a housekeeper.

He was frantic. He pleaded with her. He wept. He swore he would kill himself if he had to remain in the shop any longer. Then he wrote a long, pathetic letter to his old schoolmaster, declaring that he was heartbroken, that he no longer wanted to live. His old schoolmaster gave him a little praise and assured him that he really was very intelligent and fitted for finer things and offered him a job as a teacher.

That praise changed the future of that boy and made a lasting impression on the history of English literature. For that boy went on to write innumerable best-selling books and made over a million dollars with his pen. You've probably heard of him. His name: H. G. Wells.

 
Positive Reinforcement Stories

Story 1

Use of praise instead of criticism is the basic concept of B.F. Skinner's teachings. This great contemporary psychologist has shown by experiments with animals and with humans that when criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention.

This works on the job too. Keith Roper of Woodland Hills, California,
applied this principle to a situation in his company. Some material
came to him in his print shop which was of exceptionally high
quality. The printer who had done this job was a new employee who
had been having difficulty adjusting to the job. His supervisor was
upset about what he considered a negative attitude and was
seriously thinking of terminating his services.

When Mr. Roper was informed of this situation, he personally went
over to the print shop and had a talk with the young man. He told
him how pleased he was with the work he had just received and
pointed out it was the best work he had seen produced in that shop
for some time. He pointed out exactly why it was superior and how
important the young man's contribution was to the company,

Do you think this affected that young printer's attitude toward the
company? Within days there was a complete turnabout. He told
several of his co-workers about the conversation and how someone
in the company really appreciated good work. And from that day on,
he was a loyal and dedicated worker.

What Mr. Roper did was not just flatter the young printer and say
"You're good." He specifically pointed out how his work was superior.
Because he had singled out a specific accomplishment, rather than
just making general flattering remarks, his praise became much
more meaningful to the person to whom it was given. Everybody
likes to be praised, but when praise is specific, it comes across as
sincere - not something the other person may be saying just to make
one feel good.

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do
almost anything to get it. But nobody wants insincerity. Nobody
wants flattery.

Let me repeat: The principles taught in this book will work only when
they come from the heart. I am not advocating a bag of tricks. I am
talking about a new way of life.

Talk about changing people. If you and I will inspire the people with
whom we come in contact to a realization of the hidden treasures
they possess, we can do far more than change people. We can
literally transform them.

--

John Ringelspaugh of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, used this in dealing with his children. It seemed that, as in so many families, mother and dad's chief form of communication with the children was yelling at them. And, as in so many cases, the children became a little worse rather than better after each such session - and so did the parents. There seemed to be no end in sight for this problem.

Mr. Ringelspaugh determined to use some of the principles he was learning in our course to solve this situation. He reported: "We decided to try praise instead of harping on their faults. It wasn't easy when all we could see were the negative things they were doing; it was really tough to find things to praise. We managed to find something, and within the first day or two some of the really upsetting things they were doing quit happening. Then some of their other faults began to disappear. They began capitalizing on the praise we were giving them. They even began going out of their way to do things right. Neither of us could believe it. Of course, it didn't last forever, but the norm reached after things leveled off was so much better. It was no longer necessary to react the way we used to. The children were doing far more right things than wrong ones."

All of this was a result of praising the slightest improvement in the children rather than condemning everything they did wrong.

See my notes about BF Skinner

 
Leading by Showing Respect

"The average person," said Samuel Vauclain, then president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, "can be led readily if you have his or her respect and if you show that you respect that person for some kind of ability."

 
On Creating Resentment

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism - no matter how certain we are that it is justified.

 
On The Negative Effects of Criticism

Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment. Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, "As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation,"

Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return.

 
Criticizing vs Understanding

Instead of criticizing and condemning people, let's try to understand them. Let's try to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. "To know all is to forgive all." (To understand all.... Tout comprendre..)

See EQI page on Understanding

 
When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

From an EI perspective it would be accurate and helpful to say "motivated by their specific unmet emotional needs, such as the need to feel important, respected, valued and appreciated.

 
Note: Carnegie doesn't talk about many specific emotional needs. He generalizes them to fall under the categories of feeling important and feeling appreciated.

In one place he says: John Dewey, as we have already noted, said that the desire to be important is the deepest urge in human nature; and William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

 
Appreciation

Here are all the places Carnegie talks about appreciation and feeling appreciated.

Andrew Carnegie and Charles Scwabb

One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of
over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a
person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was
Charles Schwab. He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become
the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company
in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old. (Schwab later
left U.S. Steel to take over the then-troubled Bethlehem Steel
Company, and he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies
in America.)

Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than
three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Because
Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the
manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab
told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew
more about the manufacture of steel than he did.

Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his
ability to deal with people. I asked him how he did it. Here is his
secret set down in his own words - words that ought to be cast in
eternal bronze and hung in every home and school, every shop and
office in the land - words that children ought to memorize instead of
wasting their time memorizing the conjugation of Latin verbs or the
amount of the annual rainfall in Brazil - words that will all but
transform your life and mine if we will only live them:

"I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people," said
Schwab, "the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the
best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.

"There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as
criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving
a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to
find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish
in my praise. "

That is what Schwab did. But what do average people do? The exact
opposite. If they don't like a thing, they bawl out their subordinates;
if they do like it, they say nothing. As the old couplet says: "Once I
did bad and that I heard ever/Twice I did good, but that I heard
never."

"In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great people
in various parts of the world," Schwab declared, "I have yet to find
the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do
better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval
than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism."

--

A man with 314 employees joined one of these courses.
For years, he had driven and criticized and condemned his
employees without stint or discretion. Kindness, words of
appreciation and encouragement were alien to his lips.

--

Carnegie says that Al Capone, called by most a criminal gangster, "actually regarded himself as a public benefactor - an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor."

--

William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated. He said the "craving" to be appreciated.

--

In his story about a woman in a mental institution who believes she married into English aristocracy he says, "If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity."

 
Concerns, Commentary

How would the people he wrote about feel if they were to read this?

Is he encouraging people to be emotionally false? IE: Smile. Be happy.

I fear that if too many people act the way he suggests we people would tend to be come false and materialistic.

"But as soon as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air."

What does it mean to be successful? - See comments under DG vs DC

S. Hein

 
On Marriage, Women, Being Courteous

"No woman can ever understand why a man doesn't put forth the same effort to make his home a going concern as he does to make his business or profession a success.

"But, although to have a contented wife and a peaceful and happy home means more to a man than to make a million dollars, not one man in a hundred ever gives any real serious thought or makes any honest effort to make his marriage a success. He leaves the most important thing in his life to chance, and he wins out or loses, according to whether fortune is with him or not.

Women can never understand why their husbands refuse to handle them diplomatically, when it would be money in their pockets to use the velvet glove instead of the strong-arm method.

"Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into doing anything, and doing without anything. He knows that if he hands her a few cheap compliments about what a wonderful manager she is, and how she helps him, she will squeeze every nickel. Every man knows that if he tells his wife how beautiful and lovely she looks in her last year's dress, she wouldn't trade it for the latest Paris importation. Every man knows that he can kiss his wife's eyes shut until she will be blind as a bat, and that he has only to give her a warm smack on the lips to make her dumb as an oyster.

"And every wife knows that her husband knows these things about her, because she has furnished him with a complete diagram about how to work her. And she never knows whether to be mad at him or disgusted with him, because he would rather fight with her and pay for it in having to eat bad meals, and have his money wasted, and buy her new frocks and limousines and pearls, than to take the trouble to flatter her a little and treat her the way she is begging to be treated."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy.

• Rule 6 is: Be courteous.

 
Table of Contents

Part 1 - Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

• 1 - "If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive"
• 2 - The Big Secret of Dealing with People
• 3 - "He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who
Cannot, Walks a Lonely Way"
• Eight Suggestions On How To Get The Most Out Of This Book

Part 2 - Six Ways To Make People Like You

• 1 - Do This and You'll Be Welcome Anywhere
• 2 - A Simple Way to Make a Good Impression
• 3 - If You Don't Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble
• 4 - An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist
• 5 - How to Interest People

• 6 - How To Make People Like You Instantly

Part 3 - Twelve Ways To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

• 1 - You Can't Win an Argument
• 2 - A Sure Way of Making Enemies—and How to Avoid It
• 3 - If You're Wrong, Admit It
• 4 - The High Road to a Man's Reason
• 5 - The Secret of Socrates
• 6 - The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints
• 7 - How to Get Co-operation
• 8 - A Formula That Will Work Wonders for You
• 9 - What Everybody Wants
• 10 - An Appeal That Everybody Likes
• 11 - The Movies Do It. Radio Does It. Why Don't You Do It?
• 12 - When Nothing Else Works, Try This

Part 4 - Be A Leader - Nine Ways To Change People Without Giving Offence Or
Arousing Resentment


• 1 - If You Must Find Fault, begin with praise and honest appreciation.
• 2 - How to Criticize—and Not Be Hated for It - Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
• 3 - Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
• 4 - No One Likes To Take Orders, Therefore, Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
(See story)
• 5 - Let the Other Person Save Face
• 6 - How to Spur Men on to Success - see story below
• 7 - Give the Dog a Good Name
• 8 - Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct
• 9 - Making People Glad to Do What You Want

Part 5 - Letters That Produced Miraculous Results

Part 6 - Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier

• 1 - How to Dig Your Marital Grave in the Quickest Possible Way
• 2 - Love and Let Live
• 3 - Do This and You'll Be Looking Up the Time-Tables to Reno
• 4 - A Quick Way to Make Everybody Happy
• 5 - They Mean So Much to a Woman
• 6 - If you Want to be Happy, Don't Neglect This One
• 7 - Don't Be a "Marriage Illiterate"

 
Eight Things This Book Will Help You Achieve

• 1. Get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire new visions, discover new ambitions.
• 2. Make friends quickly and easily.
• 3. Increase your popularity.
• 4. Win people to your way of thinking.
• 5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.
• 6. Handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
• 7. Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.
• 8. Arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

 
Concerns

B.F. Skinner

Carnegie seems to like Skinner's ideas. For example, he says,

B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his
experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn
much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than
an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that
the same applies to humans.

I am afraid we have gone much too far in applying Skinner's ideas though.

Also, it is a little Insulting and offensive to know you are being treated like an animal -- that someone else wants you to do something and is using the same method to try to get you to do want.

I believe that everyone should be given the same information. Employees and children and teenagers should read the same things the managers and bosses are.

I wonder what people think of B.F. Skinner now.

See Ayn Rand's Harsh Critcism of Skinner

---

Other concerns and notes

In the text of the whole book....

he uses some old fashioned terms (book was written in 1930's)
manners 4 times
courtesy 8


emotional 3 times
emotional needs 0

intelligence 3
love 75
fear 21
depress 2 not including when talking about economic depression
suicide 2

should 53
appropriate 1 - only when talking about the appropriate page in a book
proper 4
properly 5

I'd like to have quotes from what he says about:

Latin 4
education 4
school